Monday, 15 April 2013

Once again The Overnight Bestseller is pleased to host a Tribute Books blog tour. This time we welcome Michael F. Stewart as we take an inside look at his novel Assured Destruction.

Assured Destruction: Book Summary

Sixteen-year-old Jan Rose knows that
nothing is ever truly deleted. At least, not from the hard
drives she scours to create the online identities she calls
the Shadownet.

Hobby? Art form? Sad, pathetic plea to garner friendship, even
virtually? Sure, Jan is guilty on all counts. Maybe she’s even
addicted to it. It’s an exploration. Everyone has something to
hide. The Shadownet’s hard drives are Jan’s secrets. They're
stolen from her family’s computer recycling business Assured
Destruction. If the police found out, Jan’s family would lose
their livelihood.

When the real people behind Shadownet’s hard drives endure
vicious cyber attacks, Jan realizes she is responsible. She
doesn’t know who is targeting these people or why but as her
life collapses Jan must use all her tech savvy to bring the
perpetrators to justice before she becomes the next victim.

After crewing ships in the Antarctic
and the Baltic Sea and some fun in venture capital, Michael
anchored himself (happily) to a marriage and a boatload of kids.
Now he injects his adventurous spirit into his writing with brief
respites for research into the jungles of Sumatra and Guatemala,
the ruins of Egypt and Tik’al, paddling the Zambezi and diving
whatever cave or ocean reef will have him. He is a member of the
International Thriller Writers and SF Canada, and the author of
the Assured Destruction series, 24 Bones, The Sand Dragon,
Hurakan, Ruination and several award winning graphic novels for
young adults.

Our Review of Assured Destruction

Michael F. Stewart's Assured
Destruction is a YA novel that
is well-written, interesting, and enjoyable to read. It follows the
exploits of the young protagonist as she builds her Shadownet of
virtual friends and then must face the consequences as real life
intrudes on her private domain, and bad things begin to happen in
real time. But Jan Rose is up to the challenge as she tries to dig
her way out of the mess, save her mom's company, and find the real
culprits.

The protagonist is both likeable and humorous, and the
references to Ottawa throughout the novel (the city "that fun
forgot”) will spark instant recognition by anyone who has lived or
worked there. At the same time, the protagonist faces numerous
challenges in her own life, and Stewart has done a very good job of
weaving serious themes into the novel: Jan's perceived abandonment by
her father, her mother's daily struggles with MS, and the daunting
task of surviving school life and online bullying. A central thread
in the novel is Jan's attempt to write an essay on Sylvia Plath's The
Bell Jar. Plath's depression and subsequent
suicide serve as a counterpoint to Jan's conscious efforts to take
control of her life and resolve her problems. It's good to see a
strong female protagonist in YA novels.

As
Stewart's website indicates, Assured Destruction
is planned as a transmedia experience, with four books serving as an
anchor for an Internet connection that will bring Shadownet to life.
We wish him the best with this endeavour and look forward to
following Jan Rose in her future adventures!

Related Sites

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Monday, 8 April 2013

Once again The Overnight Bestseller is pleased to host a Tribute Books blog tour. This time we welcome Mark Romang as we take an inside look at his novel The Grace Painter.

The Grace Painter: Book Summary

Sometimes the hardest person to
forgive is the one reflecting back at you from inside a
mirror. Matthew London can attest to this difficult truth.
Ever since the former NYPD hostage negotiator changed his
identity and fled New York City for the backwaters of
Louisiana, regret has ruled his life.

For eight years London has lived like a hermit in a declining
plantation house. Only his talent for painting
Renaissance-style murals and paintings keeps the inner-demons
from totally destroying him. Each day the disgraced hostage
negotiator longs for a chance at redemption, never expecting
it to actually happen. But then a down-on-her-luck FBI agent
shows up on his doorstep one evening. It turns out Jean-Paul
and Sebastian Boudreaux, two local brothers famous for
lawlessness have inadvertently kidnapped a little girl.

London is quickly thrust into the starring role of a daring
rescue attempt. But before he can rescue the child from the
dangerous Boudreaux brothers, he first must find a way to
forgive himself for a past misstep, a blunder that forever
altered his once promising life. But in the Atchafalaya Basin
swampland, nothing is promised. Grace cannot be purchased or
earned. It can only be given.

Mark Romang has a colorful prose style with plenty of alliterations, similes
and metaphors reminiscent of pulp-style detective novelists.On his website, the author talks of his love for the action adventure novels of Clive Cussler, and it is obvious from the start to finish of his debut novel The Grace Painter that he is writing in the tradition of the suspenseful, action-packed thriller.

In addition to the protagonist Matthew London, there are many secondary characters and sub-plots in TheGrace Painter to reinforce
the themes of forgiveness and redemption, as well as the underlying
battle of good versus evil. However, the author is successful in maintaining the momentum of the novel and also manages to introduce a plot twist at the end that readers did not see coming.

Readers of Christian suspense thrillers by such novelists as Steven James and Ted Dekker will no doubt enjoy this new voice in the genre.

Best of luck with your next novel, Mark. It sounds as if it will be equally suspenseful!

Wednesday, 3 April 2013

I'm currently working on the fourth Donaghue and Stainer crime fiction novel, The Rainy Day Killer, so I thought it would be a good time to discuss why I enjoy writing and why I chose to write genre fiction.

When I was a kid, I was a book reader and a daydreamer. I
devoured every juvenile novel the library had on their shelves back
then, and I always wanted to be able to tell the same kind of stories
myself. Science fiction, sports, historical fiction, you name it. I wrote literary fiction for a while in the 80s, mostly short
stories, and sold a few to periodicals such as Fiddlehead and Quarry,
but once I went back to work full time with Customs I had to set the
writing aside until I was able to take early retirement. By that time,
Donaghue and Stainer were ready to burst out onto the scene.

The crime fiction genre interests me because I’ve always been a sucker for a good story. The power of
narrative over us as human beings is remarkable, and in genre
fiction a strong story is very important. As a crime fiction author, I
have an opportunity to use the power of narrative to grab my readers’
attention and move them forward through my story. Once I have them,
crime fiction allows me the opportunity to work with certain themes more
freely than other types of fiction might allow. Themes relating to our
search for justice as a society, the need to explain the existence of
evil in the world, and the toll that a career investigating violent
crime can take on a person are among those that I've explored.
For those who are new to my blog, the Donaghue and Stainer series is set
in the fictional city of Glendale, Maryland,
and focuses on the homicide investigations of Lieutenant Hank Donaghue
and Detective Karen Stainer. They come from very
different backgrounds, and their approaches to investigation and
enforcement are at times very different. Donaghue tends to
intellectualize, while Stainer is more of a butt-kicker. As the series
progresses, they grow closer (as friends and co-workers, but with no
romantic interest in one another), and the reader sees why law
enforcement officers often bond together for mutual support and
protection.

My latest novel presents a few challenges
to me: for the first time, I'm writing about a serial killer and I'm
doing a great deal of research to ensure that the portrayal is
realistic. And because Karen will be marrying her fiancé
Sandy in
this novel, I've also had to research and plan a wedding!